Altered "Camper Birdhouse"

A friend found this at a local variety store called Nina's in Spring Green, Wisconsin...

(made in China)

bought it...
handed it to me, saying something like...
"Here, maybe you can do something with this for Tony's Christmas present...don't you think?"

That was three weeks ago.

8.25" long, 5.5" high, 4.5"wide, some kind of poured resin...
now with wood, 2-part epoxy, paint and acrylic (glass) windows

$9.00 Trailer

"Here...maybe you can doctor this up for Tony..."
or words like that got this up and running.
(Tony never looks at this blog...
so if you see this, and know him...please don't mention you saw what I'm up to.)
It's a $9.00 birdhouse....
and he's been collecting trailers...
so......
Tomorrow I'll varnish the "paintings"...and finish the wheels...next day the "glass" goes in.....
I'll post it when it's completely done.

Metro Elves

(I've gotten a lot of encouragement to repost this....so here are they are....Happy Holidays!
oh, these are photographs that I actually painted on...wish you could see the originals, which look way cooler in person than anything photoshop or digital manipulation could do.)

These are my "photographs" proving that Eleves moved into the local gallery/art supply shop, Metropolitan Art, which, sadly, no longer is.

Jeb tell this elf that he can't take her frame.
"that's what you Elves do...make things!
"Now put that back", she tell him
as she begins to get the idea that Elves might be difficult and hard to control. 
(Perhaps that is why there is only one Christmas a  year). 

(Special photographs of actual Elves in Santa's Dodgeville workshop, made by Linda Kelen.)

I painted a sign for the gallery-art supply store,
which said:
"Elves Shop Here."
Because some "town people" were not believers,
I made these pictures.
No one said another word.

"Jeb is pleased to see Elves use white gloves,
leaving no finger prints on paper. "

Elves lost their shopping list.

"Elves love cookies."

"Mega, (studio dog)........................................ 
is a handy mode of transportation."

"Some Elves are too short."

"After a successful shopping spree...
Elves carry the last of their supplies out to the sleigh....(parked around the corner)."

Uneventful Tuesday before Thanksgiving

(Uneventful Tuesday before Thanksgiving)

5"x7" artist proof, original print, drypoint with mezzotint on plate of aluminum flashing...

printed on Mulberry paper....2008

Drypoint-Diogenes

4.5"x6" drypoint on 6"x8.5"Arches BFK, artist proof...printed with Renaissance Black Ink

Sick today

nope, don't like this...although, the Nurse Dogs have been excellent as bed warmers and worried companions....but, I'm suited up...taking a thermos of hot ginger tea and one of these kleenex-eating mentholated-curs with me...heading to the studio........it's a better place to be sick.

Fall Art Tour Fish

I hand colored a print of the plate I was working on during the Fall Art Tour...

4"x6" , printed on Rives BFK

Because I can't leave well enough alone
there are no two plates which are the same....
I think the official term for this is "Edition Variation #2"...
$80.00
yes, there is a #1....

Drypoint...(not titled yet)

printed on a 6.75x8.5 BFK...handcolored

I Voted!

Center for Patient Partnership....Shoe Auction

My shoe..."Never Mess with Guido's Woman"....

and the rest of the shoes, arted by other artists, can be previewed here.

More views of my shoe can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

If the Shoe Fits...Auction & Fundraiser
to benefit
The Center for Patient Partnerships
Thursday, Novemeber 6, 2008
5:30pm until 8:30pm
Nakoma Golf Club
4145 Country Club Road
Madison, Wisconsin
$45.00 per person in advance...$50.00 at the door
Questions? call the Center for Patient Partnerships at 608-265-6267

The Religionator in the Garden

...or part of the Garden...
it's a very large Garden....

2.5"x3.5"...printed from scrap aluminum flashing

The Fall Art Tour is October 17-18-19....I am number "24".

Not Etching

Collagraphs.
5x7 collagraph, printed on RivesBFK

5x7 printed on Rives Lightweight

I'll demonstrate what I'm doing here at the FallArtTour.

Carved Flames

These are being installed this afternoon
over the back wheels of a "Rascal Scooter"....I've been promised pictures of them in place.

about 14-15" wide, 1" thick, hand carved, painted

Collagraphy Experiments--two more

I was messing with the resists...
the top one was barely tacky...
the bottom one was absolutely dry.

(two 3.25"x5" aluminum flashing plates)

I wasn't so careful in putting the resist coatings on,

and left very slight ridges from the edges of the brush...

hardly visable when they dried, but they actually PRINT!

geez.....

ok, so I learned something else.

Collagraph for Auction

I'm still working with the collagraph idea from the book INTAGLIO....
donating this one to 4PeteSake along with a couple woodprints.

The Soil of the Red Planet is Toxic
3.25x5" aluminum flashing
printed on rives lightweight

Collagraph Experiments

I'm using the process from the book INTAGLIO...
not happy with two coats of Lascaux hard ground, topped with one of soft...
I went to 4 coats of hard ground and two of the soft.
I let each coat dry before the next
and let the whole mess dry overnight...
I've had problems with the grounds tearing/pulling....I believe my plates are clean, and properly prepared.

Once I wanted to see how easy it would be to get off an older experiment....
ha...no way...probably going to have to buy the Lascaux remover.

I've no idea if the soft ground is just the hard ground with additive to slow the drying...
but, it seems that it's easier to work/scratch through than their hard ground...
(this is definately not an etching needle gliding smoothly through hard ground on a polished plate)

Booger (also from next post) was done with the 2 & 1.

I recoated it with two more coats of the hard ground and another couple of the soft...
scratched through it when it was really dry and printed...Rives lightweight..

Toxic on the left is the best print (GraphicChemical paper) I could get with the 2 and 1....

a couple more coats of hard, and another two of the soft....

more scratching through...and the two prints on the left are what I got last night.

The one of me started with 4 coats of hard and two of the soft....
and the lines were deeper....


My problem is either in my printing...getting used to the press...
or I'm just needing practice...probably...
or maybe this is just what I'm going to get with this...
but, there is more information on the plates than is printing.

In the book is mention of finer pigmented ink for drypoints..
when wiping the plates...these feel like drypoints...especially in the blacks.

I'm using Graphic Chemical etching ink.
My plates are aluminum flashing....3.5" x 5".

First Collagraph Print

I need something that gives more immediate results than these metal poundings I've been doing.
Painting on the "shoe" piece is good....
the watercolors are good...
but, I'm needing to draw INTO something.
Etching would be perfect...wouldn't be wandering far from this metal thing I've got....
but I'm really not set up to etch plates....
so, using acrylic resists, and my trusty needle I started experimenting....and it feels good.

the muse, Booger 3.5x5,aluminum flashing printed on Rives LtWt.

>

Small Poundings

The amount of time each piece of metal holds is still an amazement to me....
These are a few of my small silver and copper poundings.
I'm learning to solder....
rivets are next....
and in between I'm trying to get a handle on Lascaux hard and soft grounds.
I really would love to do some etching,
I'm way not prepared to deal with etching....
but, in Robert Adam and Carol Robertson's book INTAGLIO, on page 164,
I see something that might give me some satisfaction....
so, experiments are beginning.

Aluminum pounded into Man of Teeth

Two weeks at Haystack has had impact beyond what I was warned about...
I can't put it quickly into words right now...
and can't find any of the words sent to friends which did...
or I'd be using them....
it has, however, been showing up in the arting done since....

(work in progress)

I am attacking the studio, head on.....
making some readjustments which will enable me to keep going...
moving a big bucket of wood ashes in for steel annealing....
my big surprize was what it did to aluminum!

I swore I'd own what I learned out there....
it's mine...
and I'm not stopping.

I'll post pictures soon.

Brian Brock...raised by robots

Brian Brock is a friend of mine....a musician...composer...writer of curious tales...
I love his clean, carbonated mind...
where it goes...and how he sees.
He's a very special favorite of mine.

He sent me his Raised By Robots (work in progress) CD to listen to....
I listen to it often...
when people ask what it's like...
I find myself telling them...that for me.....
it falls somewhere between Peter and the Wolf and Kandinski's paintings.

Brian played today at the General Store...
tomorrow he will play at BobFest.
Brian and Lea, whose artings I also just love...
moved out west...
but, he's here this weekend....and I'll be in the audience again tomorrow.

Clear flux copper color surprize

(I'm posting this to help illustrate a question I'm asking)

I'm short on time...
but I wanted to show you what I was talking about...
I just put it on the scanner...
not the best picture,
but I think you can see what was going on...
it's a champleve piece...(not sure about that spelling..)
but instead of filling in the etched out spaces like I was supposed to...
(learning and just forgot)
I just dusted the whole piece with clear flux enamel..unleaded...

Will this kind of metalic/irridescent greens-blues-reds happen each time?So, lucky I was...
I added some extra flux in the "flames" ...fluxless in the first firing...
it did not darken like the others did, but turned a great red, perfect for "flames"...
When fired several times more, the other pieces
did nothing but get darker and darker...no additional flux added...
yes, there were colors that looked like they were deep inside...
but, very hard to see without bright light.

I'm wanting to get this again...
is this something that normally happens, or can one encourage it?
I don't care if the colors happen in unpredictable places...I can work with that...
but, I'm really interested in this now...

Pitch Bowl

It was difficult...
hated to stop...
but, I brought my pitch bowl into the house

in order pack off to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts...
where I will meet up with it and my tools
in order to take the class taught by Kirsten Skiles.
Marcia Lewis, of ChasingMetal.com told me I'm going to learn a lot from her.
(she says "Hi" Kirsten!)
I guess I could keep figuring it out myself....
but, taking this class will speed things up for me...
answer lots of questions...
and who knows what all.

I'm leaving this one in the pitch
because I want to know if there are tools I can learn to make
that will do some things I can't do right now...
so it's coming with me.

It is an odd feeling, though, sending my tools off to "camp"....
but, I'll be busy...
there's a woodcut to work on...
another to start...
a painting to complete...
a couple drawings to finish....
I'll still be arting.

Waiting Room

Booger WAS at the Dentist...
I suppose my relationship with him is a bit over the line...
(the tech's last words to me as they walked down the hall
were something about
"if there are any serious complications, which happen at times.....")
eeuw...
but, Booger is special...

he was WeberGrill's newsletter, the GrillOutTimes official star
developing quite a following...
even getting fan mail...

he is the dog who was gone 40 days and 40 nights to return on Tony's birthday.....
part one of the tale I'll finish sooner or later in woodblock form...

he died on the operating table the next year when they took his gall bladder out...
but, tough little dog that he is, decided not to leave just yet...
so, he's into his 3rd life...

He IS the embodyment of the Small Dog of Power...

Strong, brave and handsome....in PERSON!

So this is what took my mind off "complications"....

Driver Painting

It's still wet....

another for my series of driver artings. (10 1/2" X 17")

Painting

I couldn't do anything else...
had to get something out...
didn't expect any paintings this year...
but, then...

sometimes you got to just step aside.

Aluminum poundings...(chasing & repousse)

I really have no idea what I'm going to do with these...

3.25"x4"x1" 2.25"x3.35"x1"

.....not yet.

Quadrupedal.........fund raising bike ride

I was able to do another drawing for the Quadrupedal....

which will be on a t-shirt that can be purchased through the QUADRUPEDAL website.

Last year I did a woodblock print...
one of which I'm donating to the spring Artists to the Rescue auction coming up pretty soon now, art is due by the 24th....

All proceeds from the Quadrupedal and the auction go directly to the Iowa County Humane Society.

It is for the animals....and I try to do what I can.

L. Kelen absolutearts.com Portfolio

Driftless Area Land Conservancy--Silent Auction

L. Kelen absolutearts.com Portfolio

I am one of many artists who have donated art to the Driftless Area Land Conservancy... http://www.driftlesslandtrust.org/ for a silent auction being held at
the House on the Rock Resort...(near American Players Theater)
in Spring Green, Wisconsin...
Sunday, March 9th from 3-6pm
$30 per person reservation
Feel free to contact me through this website...
you can post a comment and it will get to me...
or the contact information on the driftlesslandtrust.org website.
Details:

All donations go to the Driftless Area Land Conservancy...which I fully support.
3-3:30...socializing, tasty hors d'oeuvres & dessert tarts, complimentary wine/coffee
3:30...Doug Cieslak, Executive Director..opening remarks, challenges met
4:00...David Lowe, researcher...Prehistoric Rock ARt of Southwestern Wisconsin
4:45...Silent auction/socializing continues until the 5:05 bell ending auction.
5:15...Mark Mittelstadt, president...anticipations...closing remarks.

That's the line up....
Other artists are:
Karen Bassler, Kathy Cahill, Pamela Callahan, Karen Fitzsimons, Kathy Halverson, Sue Moore, Lauren Thuli, Ramona Palzkill, Jeb Prazak, Sue Quale, Geri Schrab.
This is the best I can do...
contact me if you've got questions.

I've got everything else scribbled out on paper here
since, I've managed to misplace the invitation with all the details....
or MeMe ate it.

"Wedding Procession led by the
Small Dog of Power. Once a
common sight...this and
other traditions of the
Driftless Area have been
forced by mondern mans
activity and expansion
into deeper seclusion." Kelen 2008

"Accustomed to formal attire
when performing in St. Elmo's
Circus of Indigenous Animals
which traveled about the
Driftless Area...the Small Dog
of Power continues to dress
appropriately for various
processions." Kelen 2008

L. Kelen absolutearts.com Portfolio

Art Show~~February13-March29

This was an interesting show for me to participate in.
Focusing on "THINGS" I love... my mind bounced about
landing on thoughts and ideas
which caused some interesting writings to slip out my pencil
producing my "commentary".

It's a strong show.
From February 13 through March 29, near the top of the hill,
Carol Spelic' and Richard Moninski's Green Lantern Studios
will have something that may just stick in your head for some time.

I let all my words out the one time, on the paper that is hanging with my THINGS....

I'll post it all, complete with the words, when the show comes down...

trying to remember what I wrote for each

would be like trying to remember word for word a conversation....

so you will have to wait...

or go see it for yourselves.